Greetings,
And so, I continue my crusade to try and get everyone to write letters and notes, less through email or text, but on real and actual paper, I will again be discussing a film with "paper" in the title. Actually, I just re-watched this movie and wanted to talk about it, despite my list of blog posts titles becoming repetitive because of it. But that was a good opener, though. Anyway, Paper Man, ladies and gentleman.
Paper Man is a 2009 movie wherein Jeff Daniels plays a writer. So, it's a Jeff Daniels movie. Yeah, he plays writers quite a bit. Not complaining. Anyway, he plays a guy named Richard Dunn, a not terribly successful novelist who goes off to Montauk in order to get some work done on his new book, something suggested by his wife, Claire, played by Lisa Kudrow (Yay!). As he has been dealing with writer's block, she thinks it will be helpful for him to have some time alone. But, alas, he is not alone. Richard has a friend with him. An imaginary friend named, Captain Excellent, played by Ryan Reynolds. And before you ask, yes, they do take complete advantage of the fact that he is a superhero, and it is rather glorious. On a slightly more serious note, he has always had this imaginary friend as a lifelong support through difficult times, and it shows how someone like this can be seen as having a disorder of some kind. More on that later.
So, along with the Captain, Richard manages to strike up a friendship with a teenage girl named Abby, played by Emma Stone. Abby seems to be a girl who is quite lost, letting herself be involved in an abusive relationship with a guy named Bryce, played by Hunter Parrish, and trying to figure out how to deal with her past. She is looking for stability in her life, I think, and though she does get some from her best friend, Christopher, played by Keiran Culkin, who loves her and wants to protect her from pretty much everyone who isn't him, it feels like he's becoming not enough for her. Almost as though he's holding her back.
The story basically follows both Richard and Abby as they simply try to figure out the direction in which their lives should be heading, though they are living ones that are mostly completely different. But it's the things they have in common that lead them to having a wonderful friendship. As to be expected, when some people look at the relationship they have, it comes across as ever so slightly creepy and inappropriate, even though, when one bothers to look closer, they would see that there is a purity and a sincerity to the friendship. It's uncommon on the outside, but it also consists of some of the essential things that lead people to become friends in the first place.
Eventually, we get to learn more about these two, while they do the same for themselves and each other. They are able to open up to each other emotionally, which helps them both deal with their issues, and it turns out they have more in common than they know or will ever reveal. And I get that is sounds as though I'm spoiling things there, but this is one of those films where, even if I laid out the entire plot, I would still say go watch it. Because it's the performances that really make this movie as good as it is.
I mean, we all know that Jeff Daniels is amazing, and he has some heart-wrenching scenes here, as does Emma. In fact, I could easily say that this might be her best performance in a film, or at the very least, it was the first to truly show how much potential she has for the future. And while I speak of the heavy emotion aspects of the movie, there is also a lot of humor in it, something that both the writers and the actors, especially these two, managed to balance brilliantly. And that is not something that is done easily.
The bottom line is this. Even though Paper Man may not have been a huge success with critics or otherwise, it might be just another one of those films that I gravitate to because I am a writer. I get the issues we have when we're not coming up with the amazing words we wish we could, and I certainly understand the feelings of needing someone to talk to, but, because everyone around us either doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand, we have to make up people to talk to. Or just settle for ourselves. I almost think that this movie turns the audience into the outsiders who see us as insane, and it lets them decide whether or not they will continue to see us like that or just accept what we are and how we think. Hopefully, the latter happens more often than not.
So, in case you didn't figure it out, I am recommending Paper Man, if for nothing else than the fantastic performances. But who knows? Maybe it will help people see us writers, not as odd, but just as us.
Love and full moons,
Becky the Writer
